The rambling thoughts of a Modern Orthodox Chassid (whatever that means).
Contact me at emansouth @ aol.com

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Visceral Hatred

Why do so many of Dovbear's commenters have such a visceral hatred of Chareidim? After numerous Agudah-bashing posts (in which many of the comments were truly disgusting and over the edge) DovBear posted a guest counterpoint that enumerated many of the good things that Agudah does.

Instead of taking their cue from the reasoned post and leaving well enough alone, these commenters couldn't handle the fact that something nice was being said about the evil Agudah and continued their nasty bashing, many, again, in an over-the-top way.

I'm just a country lawyer, but I think there must be some serious pathologies at work.

And, while I'm at it, I think DovBear has gone way too far. After registering valid criticism of the Agudah's leadership for not taking a firm stance on the Kolko situation, DovBear has engaged in a series of gratuitous attacks on the Agudah and Chareidim and, worse, has provided a forum for the above-mentioned psychos to vent, many in a vicious manner.

14 Comments:

It's not just Dov Bear's commenters; it's Dov Bear himself. He forgoes no opportunity to deride charedim, generally in the nastiest, most hateful of tones. So it's no surprise that his commenters follow suit.

I called Dov Bear on it once. He of course denied it and challenged me to provide even one example of anti-charedi writing by him. I immediately provided four from his archives, identifying them by date. He of course refused to read them. His excuse was that I hadn't hot-linked them, and it was just too much trouble for him to click on the relevant archive date and scroll down the page.

I ask you again to provide evidence that I have engaged in gratuitous charedi bashing. If you can't do it, I suggest you retract the charges. Jewish law, as you may recall, speaks unfavorably of those who bear false witness.

[Note, please, my use of the word "gratuitous" Though my recent comments about Agudah may have created some discomfot for folks like you and MoChassid, given the facts of the Kolko case there was nothing "gratuitous" about them.]

You deplore my tone, but your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that make my tone necessary.

It is unfortunate that I must occasionally use an unpleasent tone in order to get my points across, but it is even more unfortunate that the power structure in our communites have left me with no alternative.

What do I mean? If I put the things I write on my blog under my own name, or if I spoke about them in shul, I'd be ostracized, Expelled. Blackballed. And I'd suffer those consequences even if I employed a tone that was perfectly polite. You know, and I know, that the average Jew in the average shul shrugs his shoulders when he is confronted with the issues I have raised on my blog.

And if I used my blog to say my piece, but said it politely I'd have no readers. Boring blogs aren't read. I am not a prophet, but the prophets understood that sometimes fireworks are necessary. Our sifrei neviim are filled with sexual allusions for a reason. Issiah didn't have to compare Israel to an adulterous whore, but he knew that softer language would be less effective.

No, I'm not getting on the merry-go-round with you again. I provided the sources then; for obvious reasons, you pretended it was too much trouble to find them. As for your recent comments, they haven't caused me the slightest discomfort, b/c once I saw how dishonest you are, I stopped visiting your site.

Kishka, you aren't concerned with my honesty, or with my tones. You're concerened because I've said things that are true. You find the truth unpleasent so you seek to undermine it by discrediting me. That's why the (false) idea that I am anti-Charedi is so appelaing, because if Dov "hates" Charedim (I don't) then the (true) things he says about them can be ignored.

Anyway, Kishke, you've failed to do two important things (1) You haven't provided any evidence that I hate Charedim (you can't because it doesn't exist); and (2) you haven't been able to explain why a so-called Charedi-hater like me frequesntly writes and publishes guest posts that reflect well on Charedim.

what was the point of the chareidi airline post? All it did was enable a bunch of silly stereotypes and worse. I know it was meant as satire, and I have as big a sense of humor as the next guy, but I didn't think it was a good thing to do.

DB: Sure I provided the evidence; you're just pretending it doesn't exist, precisely as you did at the time. You're as dishonest now as you were then. As for your pro-chareidi posts, I told you, I don't read your blog any more, so who knows if you're telling the truth. Based on my past experience with you, it's not very likely.